Damnd Mill-Dam: Anna Seward (Der) c.1749 Scott, Child L
[My title, Child's version L from Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads- From Volume 9 "Additions and Corrections" for 10. The Twa Sisters. Anna Seward (1742-1809) from Derbyshire until age 9 and then she moved with her family to Lichfield, Staffordshire. Child's notes follow.
The 2nd refrain is found only in stanza 5 and 9 while a first refrain is missing.
R. Matteson 2014, 2018]
Pp. 183, 139. L. Anna Seward to Walter Scott, April 25-29, 1802: Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, I, No 54, Abbotsford. "The Binnorie of endless repetition has nothing truly pathetic, and the ludicrous use made of the drowned sister's body is well burlesqued in a ridiculous ballad, which I first heard sung, with farcial grimace, in my infancy [born 1742], thus:"
1 And O was it a pheasant cock,
Or eke a pheasant hen?
Or was it and a gay lady,
Came swimming down the stream?
2 O it was not a pheasant cock,
Or eke a pheasant hen,
But it was and a gay lady,
Came swimming down the stream.
3 And when she came to the mill-dam
The miller he took her body,
And with it he made him a fiddling thing,
To make him sweet melody.
4 And what did he do with her fingers small?
He made of them pegs to his vial.
5 And what did he do with her nose-ridge?
Why to his fiddle he made it a bridge.
Sing, the damnd mill-dam, O
6 And what did he do with her veins so blue?
Why he made him strings his fiddle unto.
7 And what did he do with her two shins?
Why to his vial they dancd Moll Sims.
8 And what did he do with her two sides?
Why he made of them sides to his fiddle besides.
9 And what did he do with her great toes?
Why what he did with them that nobody knows.
Sing, O the damnd mill-dam, O